News HBO draws ire after 'Confederate' announcement

That’s nice. They’re totally wrong, of course.

 

Do they, though? Do the good people on both sides agree that NAZIs were evil? I don't think Hitler's ideals are as dormant as you're saying here, at least not anymore. And you don't even have to be a full skinhead to see a tempting alternate reality here, because anti-semitism - while not *as* acceptable as it was before the Holocaust - never went away at all, and certainly isn't dormant today.

And Man in the High Castle doesn't just depict German victory, it also depicts Japanese victory - in a fashion in many ways highly flattering to the Japanese and in a world where the Japanese society has often been criticised for downplaying and/or outright ignoring Japan's war crimes.

Also, Man in the High Castle is hardly the only example. You can't tell me that US culture isn't currently dripping with way too much misogyny and generally furious backlash against the idea that women are equal - yet that doesn't mean that The Handmaid's Tale is responsible for deepening social divisions.

 

I wish this were the case. People in South Jersey, Pennsylvania between Philly and Pittsburgh, and a lot of suburban areas of the northeast spew the states rights crap. It's truly widespread.

 

Even if automation did eliminate some of the slaves who worked out in the fields, it probably wouldn't have had much of an effect on house slaves.

 

Nah, not the very beginning. Articles of Confederation, which was the original operating law of the US established strong States rights and weak Federal rights. This failed and the Constitution was established in 1789

States still held far more power than they do today until the Civil War. The war caused a shift in thinking. People started viewing the US as a single whole instead of a group of individual states. The end of Ken Burns The Civil War highlights this. People stopped saying "the United States are..." doing this or that and started saying "the United States is...". The US went from a plural to a singular.

 

They should go back in time and talk to Tracy Torme and take notes. His anthology "what if" show, "Sliders" got the same sort of flak from the get-go because (certain audiences) thought it was "Communist propaganda" while sleep-watching and not understanding what isn't exactly Shakespeare or collegiate. It's a sci-fi TV show that goes to parallel worlds not based on ours but took one small issue and expounded on it as if it became the dominant factor, keeping in enough realistic aspects while making huge embellishments, even subtly parodying (which the bulk of them did do and enough for people to pick up on it to feel reassured) and by the hour's end they win and move on to the next made up world. Fiction, it's what's for breakfast.

But (IMHO) I'd rather see a parallel universe exploration anthology of numerous ideas than trying to stretch one issue as an ongoing lengthy series. The idea they present could be interesting, but isn't going to last as they'll run out of issues to exploit, even the unexpected areas (that were unsurprising to me when I read up on history a few years back and remember enough of the unexpected aspects of it, but whatever) they could use for plot fodder. Either way, I can already imagine certain audiences screaming in tantrums over those elements. I'll admit there's a lot they can do if they bother to explore the whole of the issue. I suspect they won't, though if using controversy as publicity is the current fad, then I suspect they might - to certain extents...

Yep, depending on content somebody is going to scream (there's no way around it) and some of those tantrums are entertaining but for all the wrong reasons. But do audiences generally take TV shows as being how-to guides or entertainment pieces? The makers will make what they want starring who they want, it's their vision and the way they want to make it, it's not a big deal. Audiences get to reply with the usual: The biggest critics will complain, the biggest fans will adore every little piece no matter what and everything in between, even those who don't care.

I wasn't a fan of GoT either but being more an ideas person - and there's another issue afoot: I'm not going to actively seek out or avoid producers based on previous shows just because of how I saw them, or how popular or not they were. Joss Whedon is an acclaimed producer but like me many don't like all his shows. Firefly was cool, Dollhouse is way-cool if not weird given who the true protagonists are (it's not the puppet, who plays them well), Buffy was overrated. Individual audience members' mileage may vary. If for example I didn't bother with his stuff because of "Buffy" I'd have missed out on something more fascinating. (It's another reason not to balk at "Picard" before seeing it.)

 

How about the whites from Ireland and Scotland (and Britain) sold here as slaves? That's not 30BC. That's well over one thousand seven hundred years later and thus within the timeframe you point out. Do they not count under economic ties to America? Why or why not?

Slavery is wrong, period. It doesn't matter one bit which color is a slave because they all colors were and to ignore one slave risks trivializing all slaves as a result and I know there's far more to it all than what's in my response (so it's not my intention to trivialize any of the issue.)

And, yes, all countries did it in the past, even the distant past - like the Romans and everyone else. The past cannot be changed and we all know the past wasn't nice for lots of people under all groups. What happened to improving the future for all of the human race, together?

Onto slave owners next, how about slave owners like Anthony Johnson, William Ellison (Ellerson), Disley Pope, Mistress L Horry (a long and interesting story in amongst the others, which are also interesting), and others you're probably not aware of? And a couple names that escape me at the moment as well but the point is made: They're relevant to America's history and economy, were slave owners, and they were not white so it's not a "whites were only owners and blacks were only slaves", that was debunked a long time ago yet people still believe that is the only case.

But this tidbit is astonishing, did you know that white women during America's 1800s, made up 40% of all slave owners? (source: Atlanta Black Star)

 

^ Yeaaah... that quote's not worthy of a reply. Better luck next time.

 

Comparing Irish indentured servitude to the African Slave Trade is ridiculous and demeaning to historians, African Americans and Irish alike.

 

Well.. there's slavery today.. all over the world.. even here in the USofA..
After the emancipation of African slaves, they just turned to the chinese.. and pretty much made them slaves in the West.. Even today, illegal immigrants are slaves.. Sold in to prostitution, human trafficing, sex trafficing.. we act like its gone.. Nope.
Even Star Trek went to it with Bread and Circuses.. 60's tech but slavery was still a thing, from the time of the romans nonetheless..
If the South would have "Won" and kept its independence.. would slavery still exist there.. ah.. Nope.. just like most civilized countries don't have it today.. It would have kept going for a bit more, then world pressure would have made them discontinue it.

 

I think this was going to be the show. Show how our world have more in common than people should like. Social commentary but many pretend to miss the point so can get clicks and attention. Jason

 

I watched a documentary about the Reconstruction (I don't remember if it was on PBS or the History Channel) a number of years ago.

At the end of the documentary, it sort of summed up things by describing that the North won the Civil War but lost the Reconstruction. Slavery ended, but the racism and oppression of Blacks did not end with the war. Segregation, Jim Crow, lynchings were the new form of oppression. What was sad was that the end of the war and defeat of the south did not bring about a fundamental change in the attitude of society.

 

The Confederacy still has its lovers, people with no real clue about history or what actually happened, or more likely racists who hide from themselves behind a generations old cloak of ignorant revisionism. It was a nightmare regime designed and instilled to keep slavery running. It went to draconian efforts to shore up support within its own territories. East Tennessee tried to break away from the CSA and form its own state just as West Virginia had. When that effort failed, persons in some of the towns in that area were forced to take oaths of allegiance (essentially.. or else) to the confederacy. Union supporting towns like Knoxville became places under siege, occupied territories kept from starvation by unionist sympathizers sneaking food in at night.

I had ancestors on both sides of the conflict, but in a telling bit of anecdote, one ancestor was a union solder who was taken POW. He barely survived the ordeal but was too sick to survive transportation back north after liberation. The confederate officer in charge of that camp was the only officer hung for war crimes. Again, Johnson left the guilty off scott free. These were not good people.

Reconstruction failed because of Johnson. Abraham Lincoln did some great things in his all too short life. Picking that sack of shit as his VP wasn't one of them.

 

Now, there is an idea for a "what-if" alternate timeline. What if Lincoln lived? What if Reconstruction was handled differently? It seems like Johnson and Congress had a different opinion than Lincoln on Reconstruction. They were out for blood/revenge. Congress had to vote and approve each state being readmitted. What if there was a blank check of forgiveness and just accept every state back automatically?

Or what would have happened if the hard line was broader and firmer? What if the Stars and Bars and Confederate Flags were outlawed and banned like Germany did with Nazi imagery after WWII? What if all the Confederate statues were torn down in the 1860s or never permitted in the first place? Yes, we would not have had the news stories of the last few years of protests, but would that have affected the minds and hearts of people over the past 150ish years?

How cooperative would the Southern States have been if all their heroes and "culture" were banned and outlawed? Would Reconstruction have been worse? Would conditions today have been worse? Would the South have rebelled yet again?

 

Though it's perhaps worth noting that the latest and final season of The Man in the High Castle seemed to have some thematic parallels with its Black Communist Rebellion storyline. Given that Confederate was announced some two and a half years ago, I suppose it's not impossible it had some effect on the Amazonian showrunners, though the Black Panthers were another clear inspiration there.

 

HBO has officially decided not to make Confederate. Not at all surprised since this never really seemed to make any progress since the first announcement.

 

It's for the best really.

 

I thought they had pulled the plug on it a while ago.

 

I think they are missing out. This could have been their Handmaid's Tale but like many I to had thought this was cancelled along time ago. I am concern though when a show like this doesn't get made and we see some comic book stuff being made for HBO that they might be chasing mainstream appeal at the expense of the high art prestige shows they are famous for. I don't want HBO to stop being HBO. I want them to take chances and push the edge that even other networks that are edgy won't go to. I think though they can like let up on the forced nudity at this point. I mean if the show needs it then use it but you don't need to cram it in their just to be seen as edgy anymore.


Jason

 

The Confederacy is real history and has inspired terrorism that occurs to this day and has killed countless innocent lives. It's best to not stir that up because there are a lot of people who still believe in it and would do anything to bring it back.